HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

150 ANDREA GRAZIOSIIn October 1925, these options were embodied in the first importanteconomic German-Soviet agreement. The date is significant: for Piatakov,who at that time still controlled Soviet industry, and who had planned itsexpansion on this basis, the years between 1925 and 1930 were to havebeen the years of the First Five-Year Plan. The agreement signed with Germanyat the beginning of this period thus implicitly underlined the decisionto take Germany as the compass by which to steer Soviet industrialdevelopment.In July 1926, however, Piatakov was forced to leave the VSNKh. Sent asa trade representative to a city he despised, he again had to deal with thatpart of the West least touched by the crisis and was faced once more withthe problems unleashed by the decision to annul the foreign debts. In 1927,in fact, he belonged to the Soviet delegation that negotiated with France(which he called a "painted whore") to obtain new funds in exchange for apartial recognition of the old debts. Piatakov and the opposition supportedthis plan, at least under certain conditions, since it was necessary in order toregain access to the international capital markets. This position, dictated bythe desire to accelerate investments in industry as much as possible, againgave proof of the fact that the Left recognized the importance of keeping uprelations with the developed world, which was still its beacon, though to alesser and ever diminishing extent.Internally, the removal of the Trotskyite group from the responsibilityfor directing industry and industrial policy, and its substitution with leaderswho had had less exposure to or contact with foreign countries, marked thebeginning of an interval which was to last about three years. At leastsuperficially, this period was characterized by a decrease in Germaninfluence (which never entirely disappeared: think, for example, of the 1929reform of industry and of the introduction of the obedinenie, inspired by thekonzern) and by a growth in the influence of other Western experiences. Ofthe latter, though, many of the Stalinist leaders had a "mythical" vision,fruit of superficial knowledge and of intellectual shallowness, as is shownby their relations with the United States between 1928 and 1930. The greatfascination with "American methods," which left highly visible traces in theliterature of the time and which has deceived more than one historian, is yetanother index of the diffusion of a mentality, that of "miraculism," whichwe have already mentioned. But this mentality also allows us a look at someof the reasons for the crisis in industry of 1931 -1933.The "American model" at first seemed to offer the solution to some ofthe most pressing problems of industrialization. Everyone knew that the"American methods" consisted in mass production carried out by unskilledlabor. The former was what was needed in the USSR, which was rich in the